


Interpersonal Diplomacy

by Lirillith



Category: Long Live the Queen (Video Game)
Genre: Age Difference, F/M, Language of Flowers, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-25
Updated: 2019-10-25
Packaged: 2021-01-02 22:35:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21168986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lirillith/pseuds/Lirillith
Summary: Why would a beautiful young queen choose him?





	Interpersonal Diplomacy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cricket_aria](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cricket_aria/gifts).

The celebration felt as though it had been going on for hours, and Elodie was beginning to flag. She'd been graciously accepting compliments, and having her hand kissed, and smiling and smiling and smiling, and even when there was a small oasis of quiet around her — Uncle Armand talking to her father, and Briony turning away from Elodie to greet Adele, and a footman stepping away with a tray of empty glasses and crumbs, no one looking directly at her at all — even then she had to be smiling. Just in case. 

And then someone was approaching, to clasp Briony's hands and smile at her, and pat her father on the shoulder, and then he was coming up to her. Ignatius. The duke of Ursul, now. 

He was smiling, too, just as he had been every time she'd seen him. He'd had a neutral, faint smile on his face when he'd come to her to plead his sister's case, or the case of the people of Ursul. It had flickered when she impulsively named him the duke, but he'd pulled it back into place quickly. He'd had a fixed and false smile at the ball, when he and Corisande had danced so awkwardly together. Right now the smile seemed real, though it was subsiding from what it had been when he'd spoken to his daughter. 

"Your Majesty," he said, bowing low, and she extended her hand for him to kiss. 

"Your Grace," she responded. "I'm so glad to see you well."

"If I look well, it's in large part thanks to Your Majesty's good offices," he said. 

Surely he couldn't be talking about the duchy, could he? It seemed awfully crass to bring it up that way, and he looked grave and serious now. "How so?"

"If not for your intervention, I have no doubt that Briony would have gotten herself killed in a headstrong quest for adventure. We— I owe you a debt I can never repay."

That _we_ had meant _my wife and I,_ before he'd remembered the divorce. She winced internally in sympathy. She knew other people's marriages were different, but her parents had loved each other dearly, and she could only imagine that he must have loved his wife until things went wrong. 

"Not at all," she said. "All I did was convince Briony to visit me. I was interested in going with her, in fact."

The grave expression slipped, and he looked momentarily appalled. "Surely not!"

That stung a bit. "I knew enough to do a bit of research first," she said, feeling almost defensive. "And when I saw it would be a foolish endeavor—"

"You talked her out of it," he said. "No one else was in a position to do so. And for that, you will always have my gratitude."

She shook her head. "I could hardly let her go unprepared. There is no debt, Your Grace. The world still has Briony in it— that's reward enough for me." Tactless and irritating though Briony could be, she was a living person, and there had been enough deaths of living people already. "And perhaps it can help to balance out some of the wrongs I've done your family."

"I... am not certain what Your Majesty might mean," he said, his eyes flicking away from her.

She sighed. Perhaps that meant she should drop the subject, but it had weighed on her mind ever since Togami had challenged her. "I acted hastily when I imprisoned your sister Julianna. Later events may not have made me any more comfortable with her abilities, but everything I have learned since then indicates that she was a friend to my mother, and that she came to visit me intending only to teach me a power I might have done well to accept." Togami's smirk flashed across her mind, and she felt her heart rate spike to match the fear she'd felt then. She'd pulled through, but if her song had fallen on deaf ears, if he'd laughed at her tears and her words... Had Julianna known about him? "I fear I did her a grave injustice, and that I should have listened to what she had to say."

He was looking at her now, and his face had softened. "No one can know what the future holds." 

The priestesses who instructed her in divination and lore suggested otherwise. But they also worked with general portents and omens, making educated guesses based on the broadest of outlines. "I certainly can't," she said. 

"Nor I. Nor many Lumen, as I understand it. Your late mother, for instance — did she ever seem as though she could tell the future?"

Elodie shook her head. "Sometimes she seemed as though she could read my mind, though."

He laughed. "That's just a mother for you." 

She was smiling, again. "Thank you, Your Grace."

"I'm sorry?"

"I imprisoned your sister, I made you a duke on a whim when you might have wanted nothing of the sort..." And she might have contributed to his divorce, by chance, going by the timing of Briony's letter. "I feared you thought I was an impulsive madwoman, or that I was destroying your family on a whim. It's a relief to get to speak to you like this now." 

He smiled, a real smile, and Elodie felt her heart start to pound. Oh, no. He was handsome. Very handsome. And kind, and he was clasping her hand comfortingly. "Your Majesty does me honor to value my good opinion so," he said. "Because I know over this past year you have learned that the desires of your people, while important, are also not your first priority."

"Indeed," she said, thinking of that silly squid poem, and Sabine's reports of the gossip in the town. "I cannot let the wishes of others guide me when the good of the country is at stake. And I hope, in the future, to be able to always make fair and well-informed decisions." She sighed. "Which is impossible." 

"We can only do our best," he said. "From queen to commoner. I am glad we were able to speak like this as well." 

She nodded, and held out her hand for him to kiss, and her heart was pounding again as he did so. 

Oh, no. Briony was going to _kill_ her.

She was still young. She didn't _need_ to be married at fifteen. But she'd been an only child, and this had been a chaotic year, and it might do the country good to have some stability, people kept saying. Not to her, of course; they said it to her father, they said it in the streets, they said it in ducal courts. Sabine told her that in the taverns, people debated who would have the throne if she died childless. They considered her marriage prospects and had opinions as to the best one. They worried over her youth. They thought her father should be doing more to guide her, and if he wouldn't, perhaps she should marry an older man who would. 

Well, that was an argument in the Duke's favor, she supposed. But it was also an argument in favor of Banion. Or of one of Arisse's sons, because Arisse would no doubt be happy to step in. Or Linley or someone, because the Duke of Kigal would be happy to advise her too. And so on. 

"I just tell them you're marrying Anciet," Gwenelle said, at the next Grand Ball. 

Elodie giggled into her punch, and found her eyes turning to Ignatius again. She'd danced with him, and he'd been a perfect gentleman, kind and fatherly. _Your Majesty, I understand the desire not to favor one romantic prospect over another, but surely you might prefer a partner closer to you in age? _ She'd been so sad afterwards she'd gulped down some wine rather too quickly, and now she was sticking to the punch, and to good friends, until her head stopped spinning. Gwenelle might not know the reason Elodie seemed a little dizzy and needed cheering up, or perhaps she did, but she was a help, either way. 

"But really," Gwenelle added. "Try to fall in love with someone. Eventually Anciet's going to get old enough that people might believe it." 

All right, clearly she didn't know. That was a relief, wasn't it? That she hadn't been too obvious? "I have a few years, surely!" Elodie exclaimed. Gwenelle shrugged, and inclined her head towards her little brother. "He's getting so tall," Elodie said, unthinkingly, and Gwenelle nodded, and took a sip of punch.

The next day, Elodie took a slim volume on flower language and went for a walk in the gardens, ending with a tour of the greenhouse, dictating her choices to a young gardener who followed her with a notepad.

Gardenia, for secret love. Lily of the valley, for return of happiness. Stephanotis, for happiness in marriage. Sage, for good health and long life, and pink rosebud, acknowledgment of her own youth. Dahlia, for dignity; for him. And a pop of color in a very pale bouquet. 

She had it sent to his ducal seat by her fastest riders, along with a letter requesting leave to call on him more freely, or for him to visit her at her court. 

She received a letter back, by return messenger.

_I know of Your Majesty's expert knowledge and impeccable taste in all manners relating to expression and the arts, and so, while I would prefer to believe I misinterpret this floral message, I cannot ignore it. I beg Your Majesty's pardon, and I beg Your Majesty to reconsider. I am more than twice your age, with a daughter born before you were. I could never accept courtship from one of your tender years, and I could never in good conscience court one so young myself. I would welcome your friendship, and delight in your company, but only on the condition that neither of us thought of anything other than friendship._

Once, she would have made a high-pitched groaning noise and possibly crumpled up the letter and tossed it across the room. She certainly _thought_ about doing it. She definitely sighed out loud. Why was he the only high-ranking man in the kingdom — and not just the kingdom, she amended, remembering Talarist — who thought their age difference was any sort of bar to marriage? 

_Welcome your friendship, and delight in your company. _ That wasn't so bad, though. And she could believe it. Briony, who was writing to her a lot more often these days, had said that she hated Ursul. _It's all spooky woods and mountains and cloudy and rain and ugh,_ had been the exact wording. _The castle's _freezing, _and it's creepy, and I don't know any of the servants there or anything._ It sounded as though neither Briony nor her brother ever visited if they could help it, which struck Elodie as both unkind to their father and a truly questionable decision given Kevan's presence in their home in Mead. 

So maybe he was only offering friendship out of loneliness, or perhaps a desire for a surrogate daughter. She still didn't want him to be lonely. And she'd enjoy his company for its own sake. 

And perhaps, if they enjoyed each other's company for a few years, he'd come to realize that she _wasn't _his daughter, wasn't really anything like his daughter, and that she was, in fact, exactly what he needed in his life. 

She could live in hope, anyway. Geranium, for true friendship, she decided; she'd ask for a sprig from the gardens, to go with her letter accepting his condition.

And a branch of flowering hawthorn, for her own desk: hope. 


End file.
